The present invention relates to internal lining shoes for boots, particularly ski boots.
It is well known that usually a ski boot comprises an external rigid shell, whose sole is anchored to a ski, an internal sole and an internal lining shoe completely enveloping a foot, preventing any direct contact between the foot, its ankle and the lower portion of its leg with the external rigid shell. This lining shoe is usually provided with a large fore tongue, movable with respect to remaining portions of the shoe, for allowing foot entering, in the same way as fore tongues of standard shoes. In operating terms, the lining shoe provided with the fore tongue must assure a tight connection between the user's foot and the external shell to faithfully transmit all controls which the foot intends to give to the ski.
The lining shoe must further assure excellent "comfort" both with respect to an easy fit and good adaptability to different positions and movements of the external shell and, more specifically, it should not apply local pressures on critical portions of the foot when the external shell is fastened.
To meet these requirements, a kind of lining shoe having a tongue integral with a fore portion of a vamp has been proposed, that lining shoe being the subject matter of European Patent Application No. 90 202 879.4 filed on Oct. 30, 1990 in the name of the present Applicant. Further, another kind of lining shoe having a tongue floatingly anchored to the vamp, i.e. with a possibility of relative resilient sliding with respect to the vamp, has been proposed. That kind of shoe is the subject matter of EP-A-0 317 798, filed on Oct. 31, 1988 in the name of the present Applicant, the description thereof being here referred to for a better knowledge of lining shoe structures.
The second mentioned shoe substantially meets the above indicated requirements, however an area in which the tongue is connected to the vamp is a critical area with enlarged thickness, where, in extreme cases, it is possible to have an excess pressure localized on a top, or back, of a foot as a consequence of external shell fastening. Further, the structure of that lining shoe appears to be rather complex with evident consequences on the manufacturing costs.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate such a critical localized pressure area and simplify the shoe structure.